Silberdistel: West German Ceramics

During the last blog I wrote, I suddenly became very self-conscious about the fact that I was writing. I’d looked at my stats and found that over 1200 views had been counted last month and I suddenly thought, “Blimey, it’s not just me, Aidan and our parents that read this anymore!” I’m not sure why that made me self-conscious but every single word was a barbed wire to type out.

I’m not so worried today: if you’ve read it this often, you know what to expect. If you’ve not read it before: enjoy my ramblings about pottery from the 60s and 70s! Yes, it’s niche; yes, it’s an unusual interest for a twenty six year old woman; but, oh well – who cares?

Right, now I’ve got that out of my system: Silberdistel.

Bought on the last German Trip

Silberdistel seem to be a rarer company to find pieces of. Out of the 300ish bits we’ve bought over the last two trips to Germany, we’ve only found 3 pieces of Silberdistel. And two of these – I’m sad to say – are chipped.

The company was founded relatively late in 1947 by Johann and Grete Breu in Gevelsberg. In 2005 the brand was sold to Carstens and has been manufactured since then in Rheinsburg near Berlin. The factory remained a small studio pottery even during the rapid expansion of the ceramics industry in Germany during the 1950s and 1960s. This could possibly explain why there are relatively few pieces to be found, compared to the big factories of Scheurich and Bay.

These next two were bought on the latest trip (Germany: The Remix).

Silberdistel 336 / 15

Base

Silberdistel always used white clay, rarely had the manufacturer’s mark stamped into them. The numbers were incised by hand rather than impressed, embossed or stamped by machine.

Silberdistel 324 / 22

This one is a slight oddity as it has W – GERMANY impressed on the bottom instead of SILBERDISTEL:

Base

So there’s a quick run through of Silberdistel.

We’re thinking of doing a car boot sale in the morning, potentially taking along a few of the pots to see how they do. Will report back!